


Strangers in the Night

by Neftzer_nettlestonenell



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Rare Characters, Rare Pairings, unusual pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 20:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13666431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neftzer_nettlestonenell/pseuds/Neftzer_nettlestonenell
Summary: A bad night to find yourself in one of the darker corners of Nottingham Castle--with one of its darker residents, in one of his darker moments. Through ep 3x02. Slight overtones of non-consensual (but no reason to worry).





	Strangers in the Night

She thought of Will. Of Much. Of Allan. John, even. Of the various receptions her current costume had won her as they had snuck into the castle. How mildly humorous it had all seemed only three-quarters of an hour ago.

 

Then, she had had to let herself be herded back in among the forced-into-service local wenches and professional tavern 'working girls'.

 

All in the service of one man: the Sheriff--to be put at the service of another--the visiting German Count.

 

The service of one man.

 

Herself, now currently at the mercy of another man. A man in thrall to the Sheriff. The man Gisborne.

 

She  _could_  fight him off. She could stringently resist. She could attack him, or in some other way call far too much attention to herself.  _Would it be worth it?_  The lives of the rest of the gang--even now afoot in the lower castle? The possible unmasking of Marian as colluding with Hood's outlaws? The life of the incarcerated Sir Edward, if it came to that?

 

She thought of Robin's reaction to her in her girl's attire, when first he had inspected it before she left for the castle. He had surveyed her like a man considering buying a horse, circling her 'round and 'round several times, the others off on their own little missions necessary to prepare for the raid. 

 

He chewed his lip, he even gnashed on his thumbnail for a moment, staring at her. 

 

"Something is not right," he told her, striding closer. He motioned with his hands as if asking for permission, which she gave, and he tore away excess fabric from the frock that had draped from shoulder to shoulder, covering her cleavage. 

 

"Well," he sighed, skeptical at his alteration. "It shall have to do." His eyes crinkled and he pretended as though he were trying to hold back his irrepressible grin. "You are not so very ugly... _I suppose_ , that they shall turn you away from serving."

 

 _He_  did not know how many years it had been since she had been dressed to fit her gender, despite this frock's lack of adherence to her culture's expectations for a respectable woman's apparel.

 

He did not know how uncertain this step into the feminine made her feel when she let herself truly think about it. How, if not defenseless, how much additional personal vulnerability it created in her mind.

 

He did not know that a smile and a cheeky comment from him, culminating in his approval in that moment, mattered.

 

She remembered her arms' strength, her quick eyes, her practiced hands, and legs for running or kicking--her always-dependable mind within. They were all still hers, all still very much at her disposal.

 

And with them she served one man. She served the principle of Robin Hood, as embodied in that man, the leader of her gang:  _Robin_.

 

As the man Gisborne leaned into her, even in the dark she could discern the contrast between the pale skin of his neck and his midnight-dark hair. 

 

She would not flinch.

* * *

He did not like it. He did not think she would go through with it. She was Marian, after all. When did she ever do what she was told? Yet here was the dress (the dress he had not truly expected her to buy), here the smile for the Sheriff's Booby (the smile he was certain she would have died before sharing).

 

What he had wanted, perhaps, was for her to beg. Her total capitulation to him. Her eloquently reiterating everything he had ever told her, ever wished her to believe. Her complete and utter retraction of all that had occurred on their wedding day.

 

But he also wanted her to understand pain.

 

And yet he had found himself feeling cruel in his treatment of her.  _An unusual feeling_. Though he doubtless had many acts of cruelty on his conscience, they had never felt so in the doing, never pricked at his--he had no name for it.

 

Parts of his mind, separate from the logical, struggled to find an even keel. Did he wish her dead? Herself injured? Physically, or only emotionally? Or did he wish for something less permanent? A lesson to be learned? A highly self-righteous girl brought (satisfyingly) low? Reminded who her masters were?

 

When he had sighted this dark-haired wench, spoken to her among the guards and the other trollops the Sheriff had imported, he had not even registered her face. Only the neckline of her gown, so similar in its slope to the new red of Marian's. It had been enough of a connection for him.

 

Here in the low half-light of the corridor he buried his face in it, leaned into the curve of the neck. He could not think of it as 'her' neck. There was no 'her', ever, but Marian. This woman before him now, which he had trapped by his weight and his size in-between two architectural pillars, was a mere object. A scratching post for a cat. Any fresh heifer penned in with a still-virile bull.

* * *

"Oh! I say," Count Freidrich half-waltzed, half-swanned toward the darkest recess of the lowly lit corridor, "I was about to pretend I was on my way to the privy--but I see  _you_  have found her for me!"

 

"I beg your pardon?" Gisborne asked, incrementally stepping away from the girl, the marks of his mouth's (likely unkind) pressure on her skin (though it was dark in tone) still visible.

 

"Why, the Sheriff let me know I am to have whatever I might need in order to..." the Booby's eyebrow raised. "...regain my winning streak--and 'bone up' before my...appointment-for-love later tonight with the vivacious Lady Marian."

 

"Did he." Gisborne did not render it as a question.

 

"I have always found 'the help' to be, truly, such a  _help_  at these times." The Count cleared his throat. "Not that such times are, ahem, at all frequent." He threw a hungry glance at the wench. "And with  _your_  help, my dear, I am sure we shall banish my...gaming impotence...in under five minutes."

 

"Shall I show you to a chamber, my lord," Gisborne glowered, irritated at being interrupted, at having to surrender his pick of the litter to the Sheriff's idiot guest. He wondered if the man even knew  _what_  in the act went where.

 

"Oh, no no  _no_!" The Count cried, declining the offer. "This spot is much better. Much...more dangerous."

 

Gisborne folded his arms and increased his glower.

 

"Ah! My good man, Sir Guy. I enjoy the possibility of being caught--not of performing while an audience watches, so..." He made a noise and hand motions to illustrate that Gisborne should excuse himself and go. "Unless you would care to..." his ridiculous, floppy-haired head bent to one side, "join?"

 

To further drive home his point, and insure that Gisborne had truly departed the area, Freidrich turned toward Djaq, eyes for nothing else, with a slow smile cupping her generous bum in his palm, and twining one of her legs about his waist, her back (as before, with Gisborne, to the wall). When his hand got to her ankle, he wrapped it toward his back and brought the hand back, skin-to-skin this time, peeling her skirt up toward her hip, uncovering her leg to the upper thigh, and proceeded to kiss her quite deeply.

 

At this, she no longer found it so easy to keep her concentration on matters immediately at hand.

 

When he pulled away, his arm retracting to allow her skirt to fall ticklishly back in place, the spot on her thigh where he had settled his hot (but far from unpleasantly so) hand still tingled with the unaccustomed-to-her sensation.

 

"I do not know," she told him genuinely, and not without gratitude, "whether to thank you, or take my dagger out and threaten your manhood for assaulting me." A small, uncertain smile played about her lips. Her eyes shifted, half-hesitant.

 

"Ah! No worries, Fraulein Djaq," Freidrich assured her. "If you do not mention it to the ginger, light-fingered fellow," he spoke conspiratorially, "I will hold my tongue as well."

 

"What? Allan?" she dismissed the thought. Hurriedly, her tone almost irritated, she announced, "I don’t know what you are talking about."

 

"Ah," the Count pretended for a moment to agree, nodding. "I bet the carpenter chap does, my dear," he asserted with confidence. "I would  _gladly_  wager double or nothing on  _those_  odds."

 

**The End**


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